Lee Harris’s failed defence of tradition

Understanding traditionThere is much of interest in Harris’s essay. Harris is alive to the problems of defending tradition:

Those defending a tradition at all costs must adopt the relativist view that there is no higher standard by which to judge one tradition against another, as this is the only way to make sure that tradition may not be overthrown by the confrontation with such a standard. On the other hand, those who wish to defend a tradition by showing it to conform to a higher standard reduce the tradition to the status of means to an end.

Trying to defend tradition in general seems a hopeless task. It is all too easy to find traditions that one’s audience will find repulsive—“honour” killings, or female genital mutilation, for example.

Harris wants to make sure we consider tradition in full, not some superficial understanding of it. So he alerts us to the difference between overt justification and hidden utility:

The intellectualist interpretation of a tradition as a corpus of formal propositions whose truth or falsity may be argued lies at the heart of all efforts to find an objective or neutral way to judge among competing traditions. This is evident in the Enlightenment’s attack on tradition as outmoded superstition — an argument Hayek brilliantly demolishes. A tradition, he realizes, may well be justified by a community on nonsensical or irrational grounds; but this by itself need not make the tradition less useful to those who follow it.

Quite so. I am reminded of the story of the friend of a English Lord Chief Justice who was offered the position of chief judge of a colony, despite having no legal training. The Chief Justice allegedly suggested to his enquiring friend that he take the position but never give any reasons for his judgments, on the grounds his decisions were quite likely to be correct, but his reasons were sure to be wrong. Traditions may evolve for reasons that are based on the “embedded knowledge” of experience not captured in abstract or conventional (or even after-the-fact) justifications.

Hence, Harris argues:

every inherited tradition has come down to us at two distinct levels — first, as a behavioral phenomenon, as an embodied value hardwired into our neural circuitry and into our sweat glands, and secondly, as an articulated value that can be analyzed and discussed, attacked and defended, in words.

The “naturalness” of the familiar is a powerful thing. Indeed, a working definition of our sense of something being “natural” is ‘accepted background constraint’. But Harris goes too far: the notion that traditions are “hardwired into our neural circuitry” is nonsense, they vary too much across societies and across time.

The awareness of this variety is, of course, itself corrosive of tradition, for it means that tradition loses its sense of “naturalness”, of being part of the “necessary” and “normal” structure of things, because clearly, if traditions vary so much, they are not such.

Still, if we do not let our metaphors run away with us into actual empirical error, the distinction Harris identifies does meant that:

when confronted with any particular tradition, we now have two different criteria to evaluate its usefulness — first, the usefulness of the tradition’s base, the visceral code out of which the social structure of the community is created, and second, the usefulness of the tradition’s ideological superstructure.

Though, of course, decoupling one from the other may be a difficulty. Particularly if it turns out the only real basis for the tradition is the “ideological superstructure”.

But Harris seems to want to wander off into the realm of, if not quite the consoling lie, certainly that of comforting ignorance:

Reason, logic, the endless quest for knowledge — these are all noble things. But no sensible person will agree to have them used against him to undermine his happiness and tranquility. … Yes, we are willing to admit that there is much we cannot know about the people we love, and much that we have to take on blind faith, and much indeed about which a skeptic can raise questions — but must we hear it all?

Well yes, if it is causing people unnecessary hurt and misery, for example.

What is a very strong justification for a tradition? That it is a basic building block of one’s society:

We cannot ask whether the visceral code is useful to the community when it is in fact constitutive of the community: It is the foundation on which the community is built. It is a necessary precondition of achieving community at all, and hence it is improper to evaluate it in terms of its mere utility.

But such a claim is standard for any oppressive tradition. Giving Jews legal equality was claimed to undermine fatally the Christian basis of society (or the constitutive national identity). Giving women the vote was equally undermining of basic gender distinctions upon which the society operated. Blacks had to be excluded because civilisation had been created, and was transmitted, by white people. All these claims turned out to be false—indeed, monstrously so. But they were made. The “basic building block” is a very big claim, with a very, very dubious history when used to justify exclusion.

Of course, if a tradition concerns the basic socialisation of new generations, then there may be more plausibility to work with in sustaining the “basic building block” claim:

Thus, a tradition can be a passive inheritance from the past that weighs heavily on the present generation or a vehicle for actively transforming the present generation in accordance with the pattern set by the borrowed tradition.

Hence, Lee Harris argues, we must keep marriage solely for opposite-sex couples, due to its centrality in socialising new generations of our society. That is what makes opposite-sex-couples-only marriage a “constitutive tradition” which is fundamental and must be defended.

Ignoring historyWhere to start? First, with the presumption that same-sex couples are not raising children. Lots of them are, and, according to the evidence, doing at least as good a job at it as opposite-sex couples. This is enough on its own to demolish Harris’s argument: he is just wrong on the facts.

But his error is reflective of a larger error. Ultimately, his argument rests—as all exclusion arguments do—on the notions that the excluded group is some lesser or “failed” version of “real members” of the community. Not only does he fail to grasp that same-sex oriented people are parents, he also fails to grasp the reality that they are children.Read More...If marriage is so constitutive of a society, what does forever excluding it from same-sex couples tell same-sex attracted or oriented adolescents about themselves and their role in society? This is what is so offensive about the nonsense that excluding the same-sex attracted or oriented is about “defending families”. Actually, such anathematisation has profoundly destructive effects on families. It alienates parents from their children, makes adolescence for an isolated and vulnerable group much more traumatic than it needs to be, encourages people to hide from their own sexuality in cover or desperation (or simply forced) marriages.

To define family life in general (and marriage in particular) as being required to be at war with the reality of human sexual diversity cannot be other than destructive. That such destructiveness is “traditional” justifies it not at all. Though it does make it invisible to the undiscerning eye.

Traditions are grounded in history and cannot be understood without examining that history. How was the tradition created? How did it originate? How was it maintained? Why is it under stress? These are all relevant questions that Harris ignores or skates over.

In particular, Harris ignores culture wars that are not convenient for his analysis—such as that between Christianity and paganism in late Antiquity. The exclusion and anathematisation of homosexuality and homosexual acts was not a tradition that “just grew”, it was imposed; imposed with considerable brutality, and maintained with brutality. Indeed, the reason why it is collapsing now is that the brutality (both public and private) necessary for its maintenance has been withdrawn or even anathematised itself. Harris is completely correct that we need to examine why a tradition or institutional arrangement persists: the actual why’s, not the “floating” why’s. Trouble is, that does not lead where Harris thinks it does.

Harris clearly thinks that there has been no tradition of same-sex marriage, that it is some strange, new anti-traditional claim. Far from it: traditions of same-sex marriage which were suppressed by monotheist colonisers and settlers—including in the lands now incorporated in his own United States of America. It was those who drove such social arrangements out who were destroying tradition.

But, again, this history is rendered “invisible”. For, of course, if same-sex attracted and oriented people are not “real folk”, then they cannot have a “real history”, can they?

This is what is particularly offensive about Harris’s generous “offering” that:

If gay men and women want to create their own shining examples, they must do this themselves, by their own actions and by their own imagination. They must construct for themselves, out of their own unique perspective on the world, an ethos that can be admired both by future gay men and women and perhaps, eventually, by the rest of society. But there can be no advantage to them if they insist on trying to co-opt the shining example of an ethical tradition that they themselves have abandoned in order to find their own way in the world. It will end only in self-delusion and bitter disappointment

It is all about “you are not really like us”. If one took out “gay” and put in “black” or “Jewish”—or applied it to politics and put in “women”—we would see immediately how utterly offensive the “generous” and “reasonable” offer is.

But the argument about whether blacks, Jews or women are “full persons” or not is over—at least in mainstream society—so anything that makes it blatantly clear that they do not count as “real people” is obviously offensive. The trouble gay folk suffer is that their “real” humanity is still contested, so what would be obviously offensive if “offered” to blacks, Jews or women can still be passed off as “reasonable” even “generous”. But what it is really saying is you are not “real” people, and treating as if you were would profoundly corrupt the very structure of our society. Exactly the same claim the Jew-hater makes, the black-hater makes, the opponent of female legal and political equality makes. It is the constitutive claim of bigotry, the reviling against the “insult of equality”. Indeed, the embracing that—as a visceral reaction—such equality is an insult, a profoundly threatening corruption.

The essence of bigotry is that it excludes people from the moral community, hence equality being an insult and inclusion being an undermining “corruption”. The name we give longstanding bigotry is, sadly often, ‘tradition’. After all the push for same-sex marriage is not merely some "trouble-making intellectuals" idly asking questions. It is about people who voices have been so long suppressed—indeed, for long brutally suppressed—seeking legal equality. That Harris can class such an effort as merely being like the Sophists of Greece of the philosophes of C18th France engaged in intellectual games is, in its own way, profoundly belittling. A dismissal of human reality. A sign of how invisible to Harris as "real people" the same-sex attracted ultimately are.

Harris’s defense of tradition is just bigotry hiding behind the soft words of “reason” based on willful and systematic ignorance of the actual history and dynamics of the tradition he wishes to defend. A bigotry that is invisible precisely because it is “traditional”. His defense no more works than did the arguments to defend the traditions of excluding Jews, of keeping women legally subordinate to their husbands, of excluding them from political life, of keeping blacks subordinate. Or rather, it works just the same.

15 comments:

I didn't even get into the question of traditions which are functional but still abhorrent (such as "honour" killings, which have the grim logic of keeping the production of children controlled and within the lineage).

1) Tradition (monotheistic tradition in effect) is opposed to same sex marriage.

2) Tradition is important because it is the basis of civilization.

The second has an implicit more disgusting claim that has been used by Orson Scot Card -- same sex marriage is a threat to civilization. That's a dangerous claim.

Counter argument:

Even if we accept that tradition has importance, they are certainly not beyond criticism. after all, traditions have changed significantly as society changed.

Alternative tradition argument:

A religious person can claim that as a matter of faith he or she follows certain traditions, which include objection to same sex marriage. Since it is a matter of religious belief the possibility of flexibility with the adherence to the tradition is limited. (This is the hardest on religious gays).

Counter arguments:

1) Religions have shown an impressive ability to adapt to changing social mores.

2) It is one's individual right to faithfully follow a religious tradition which rejects same sex marriage, but it's something completely different to try to impose these beliefs on society as a whole.

Reply of the adherents of tradition:

We must oppose same sex marriage even for people who do not share our religious beliefs, because we view same sex marriage as a threat to the fabric of our society and of society as a whole.

Answer: an impasse. There is no way to go from here except back to the basic humanistic argument -- gays should be treated as equals.

I liked your post, particularly for its willingness to engage the arguments, but I just wanted to say that the linked studies about the children of lesbian couples don't seem very scientific (unrepresentative samples, etc.).

Anonymous: social science studies suffer the difficulty of studying agents (so needing volunteers, etc). The first study uses matched samples, which is one way around the problem, while the second follows normal patterns for longitudinal studies. In other words, they are fairly typical of the wider field.

Micha: To follow on from what you have to say, at bottom is the issue is about contested humanity. If GLBTI (gay lesbian bisexual transgender intersex) folk are simply people, then they are entitled to equal protection of the laws. It is only by explicitly or surreptiously contesting their humanity that the contrary argument works (as we can see in Vatican statements on the subject). Unfortunately, due to the sex and gender issues of monotheism, that is the traditional position in Western and Islamic societies (and the incumbent legal position in formerly Western-ruled societies). Due to Leninism's massive social conformity issues, it is also the incumbent position in post-Leninist societies.

I agreed with Micha’s post right up to the last sentence. Gays should not be treated as equals; they should be recognised as equals. Equal members of the human race. Being human is to be part of a very diverse group with a huge variety of sub-groups and with all sub-groups being equal members of the same species. Equality and equivalence are not the same though. If you aspire to a Nobel Prize statistics show you should be a part of the Jewish group; for respect in the artistic or intellectual field common sense says you would be better off in the Gay group then the any fundamentalist religious group. As a human being VS Ramachandran is my equal but in no way am I equivalent as a scientist, intellectual or in my ability share my knowledge in such a lucid and entertaining manner. So the problem is why is it that my sub-sub-group admires such another group, while others turn to hatred.David

The good news is that religions had no choice but to adapt to the changing values, and to become relatively more tolerant toward gays then before. But the way they were able to do it was with a "hate the sin, love the sinner"attitude, which turned the issue of same sex marriage into a major principle for them, since it means not only tolerating gays but accepting them as equals.

The "insult of equality" is always very keenly felt by the bigoted mindset, because the point is that one is "defending" "moral decency" from people who are "outside" (or at least lesser members of) the moral community. So to have them regarded as equals is insulting.

I often see "tradition" as memetic success. There are all sorts of new approaches starting everyday. Those which survive a long period of time we call "tradition." That memetic success is a reason to accord the notion of tradition a great deal of respect, but not enough for any particular tradition.

The idea of memes was a psychological/sociological/mental analogy to genes. So saying that certain ideas, i.e. tradition, was able to survive because is developed certain phenotypes (? - it's been a while), is no different than saying that a certain animal or plant had a certain phenotype that helped it survive. the animal might be a virus or bacteria. It doesn't really say anything good or bad about any tradition except that it is good at surviving, so going against it might be risky.

But you might also go beyond memes and argue that traditions survive because they offer something to humans that is of some value.

Or you can take a humanistic approach and say that you have to respect the fact that tradition is valued by people.

In any case, it's one thing not to reject tradition completely and it's another not to critically examine it.

In general, I do not like the word/concept "meme." The way it us used on blogs, it means little more than "something a journalist wrote about Julia Gillard in yesterday's newspaper."

But in the context here, I hope the word is more apt and powerful.

What I hoped to distinguish was the process by which a tradition came to still flourish in 2010 - whether it be male/female marriage or shaking hands - and that tradition's appropriateness and/or utility today.

To continue the biological metaphor, if all trees in the forest are dying or being felled by timber companies, maybe we should start thinking about supplementing our current diet of tree leaves, climb down from the canopy, and check out the verdant grasses yonder.

Of course, it is here the meme concept itself reaches the limits of its usefulness. As far as I know, genes do not have consciousness. Is there a parliament, which genes can lobby? :)

I will also go away and think a bit more on whether conservatives could rely on the meme analogy to rely on the continuation of:

1. Marriage being something, which the legislature should even be defining.

2. Maintaining the restriction of that definition to one man and one woman.

One immediate hole I can see, is that the legislature is not where the real action of memetic selection takes place.

The legislature becomes either a prize giver to the memetic victors, or deliberately intrudes on a habitat, where other memes appear to be flourishing. It does so in order to expand the dying habitat of its own favored memes - to which it awarded the prize of legislative entrenchment long ago - or to destroy the habitat, which sustains a flourishing and growing population deemed (rationally or not) a threat to its favored meme.

One extremely important historical fact that needs a lot more discursive oxygen, is that monotheistic religions do not have the patent on marriage and never have.

Indeed, humanity's oldest unbroken concept of marriage involves one man and more than one woman. I haven't see too many conservatives taking to the streets demanding the legalizing the grand tradition of polygamy, though.

Christians, for example, barely mentioned marriage for the first 500 years. Why would they bother? Christ was returning next weekend, so there was no time for hiring wedding singers, and choosing flowers. Secondly, marriages involved all that exchanging of bodily fluids, and other yucky stuff they hated.

When the Christians worked out that God was stroppier than they presumed, and would not be returning until they given their ways much more than a spring clean, only then did they even notice marriage.

Fortunately, for the Christians, the Romans had been marrying for quite some time, so the Christians had a high-end off-the-rack product, they could rent or lease. While they eschewed bespoke marriage, let alone couture, they did choose the finest of Roman pret a porter marriage products; univira.

Sure, over time, the Christians, added did some stitching and patching, but never enough to justify patenting marriage as a new invention, over which they had monopoly use for eternity.

Back in 1995 or so I read the Selfish Gene. at the time i thought that Memes were the greatest thing since sliced bread. The basic idea of the book was that biological evolution doesn't take place at the level of the species, but at the level of the gene. It is not the survival of species but the continued existence and replication of genes that make up species.

The idea of memes was that they are like genes -- they are replicated, the survive or don't survive over the years, they mutate, and they affect how people behave in a way similar to how genes affect the physical characteristics and behavior of biological species.

Up to this point it sounds good, but then things become less clear to me about how this analogy works.

1) What is the species? are Christianity or Islam or Judaism species with different memes, like belief in god or opposition to same sex relations? Or are the species people; Christians, Jews and Muslims, each with their own memes, but sometimes the same ones?

I think the latter is more correct. But this leads to the second issue.

2) It is clear that memes replicate. An idea like, say, martyrdom get replicated in infinite ways, from medieval Lives of Saints and renaissance art, to posters on the walls of Gaza and CNN news about a successful suicide bombing. But whereas genes are passed to person by his parents and remain the same throughout his life (except mutations), a person is exposed to different memes that become part of him throughout his life. What does that mean about the analogy?

It also leads to the third issue:

3) What is it that determines the survivability of memes? Genes Survive by being passed on by an animal or plant to an offspring. But what is it that causes a noxious idea like opposition to same sex relationships to survive for centuries? Is it because of human psychology or sociology?

4) We can see that part of what helps memes survive is that they evolve like genes. Even the attitude toward gays adapted, so now gays are tolerated by gay marriage isn't. Antisemitism evolved many times, and so did Judaism, Christianity and Islam. But this still doesn't solve the problem for me.

I think memes are a good way to think about ideas and how they replicate and evolve, but they don't seem to work well enough to explain them completely.

The relevant thing with memes, like regular evolution, is that it strips the process of survival of ideas from any moral context. So conservatives really shouldn't want to use it.

But I think people who oppose gays will latch onto anything, scientific or religious or social to justify themselves. In arguments like that I often have to explain to people that something like homosexuality can't be 'against the laws of evolution'. (I'm not gay myself, but it is an issue I argue with people about).

Still, it is interesting to think of the attitude toward gays and tradition in general in terms of evolution and survival. so I'm happy you brought this up. I haven't thought about them since the late 90s.

I read the Selfish Gene. At the time I thought that Memes were the great. The basic idea of the book was that evolution doesn't take place at the level of the species, but at the level of the gene. It is not the survival of species but the continued existence and replication of genes.

The idea of memes was that they are like genes -- they are replicated, the survive or don't survive over the years, they mutate, and they affect how people behave in a way similar to how genes affect the physical characteristics and behavior of biological species.

It sounds good, but I wasn't clear about how this analogy works.

What are the species? Are Christianity or Islam or Judaism species with memes, like belief in god or opposition to same sex relations? Or are the species people: Christians, Jews, Muslims, each with their memes, sometimes the same ones?

I think the latter is more correct. But this leads to the second issue.

It is clear that memes replicate. An idea like, martyrdom get replicated in different ways, medieval Lives of Saints, renaissance art, posters on the walls of Gaza, CNN news about a successful suicide bombing. But whereas genes are passed to a person by his parents and remain the same throughout his life, a person is exposed to different memes during his life. What does that mean about the analogy?

This also leads to the third issue.

What is it that determines the survivability of memes? Genes Survive by being passed on by an animal or plant to an offspring. But what is it that causes a noxious idea like opposition to same sex relationships to survive for centuries?

Fourth, We can see that part of what helps memes survive is that they evolve like genes. Even the negative attitude toward gays adapted. Now gays are tolerated but gay marriage isn't. Religions evolved too. But It's still not clear to me.

I think memes are a good way to think about ideas, but they don't seem to work well enough to explain them completely.

The relevant thing with memes, like regular evolution, is that it strips the process of survival of ideas from any moral context. So conservatives really shouldn't want to use it.

But I think people who oppose gays will latch onto anything, scientific or religious or social to justify themselves. In arguments like that I often have to explain to people that something like homosexuality can't be 'against the laws of evolution'. (I'm not gay myself, but it is an issue I argue with people about).

Still, it is interesting to think of the attitude toward gays and tradition in general in terms of evolution and survival. so I'm happy you brought this up.